Don’t read anything into it though…

Lovely.

Takes a bit of getting used to, but after a while quite nice! Though I did have to put my feet flat on the bottom of the tank ‘cos it was getting too ticklish…

• Paying for a motel or hostel and being given little more than a sheet to put on the floor to sleep on is completely normal.
• I can eat anything, any size, any shape, with chopsticks. I can dissect food of any kind. On the rare occassion we go for a meal and we’re given a knife and fork, I sometimes have to take a few seconds to remember what to do with them.
• I’ve honed my eye for spotting the smallest piece of meat in my meal, and can whip it out without even thinking about it.
• I can zone out of general lab conversation (in Korean), but my ears prick up as soon as anyone starts calling for me.
• I bow when greeting or saying bye to people, and when thanking people.
• I speak a strange mix of Korean and English to other foreigners. Ballie ballie! (quicky!) Opseyo! (means so much… generally along the lines of “not”).
• Drinking alcohol isn’t the same without gombae! or Korean drinking games (banny banny banny banny… tangbang! tangbang!)
• I accept things with 2 hands, and I give things with my hand that’s not in use on my opposite elbow. It’s a respect thang.
• I speak much more slooooooowly and clearly than I used to. I suspect certain people back home will be thankful for this.
• I eat lunch ridiculously early (11:30), but still eat dinner quite late (6:30pm), which means I can go most of the day without any food. I’m not sure if this is a Korean thing, or specific to where I work.
• I know this is a bad thing, but I don’t hold the door for people. It’s the Korean way…

We decided that rather that just fly there and back, we would try to get the ship from the mainland to the island. So, we got the train bright and early and travelled to Mokpo, a smallish city in the south-west corner of Korea. From there we got the 6 hour ferry to Jeju. We travelled third class, which meant we all got put in a big room where we had to sit on the floor. A few months ago, before I came here, the idea of sitting on the floor would have been out of the question. It’s just not something we do here. But since I’ve been here, I’ve grown quite fond of the idea. Many restaurants require you to sit on the floor and most of the motels and hostels I’ve stayed in only give you a thin mattress to roll out on the ground to sleep on.

Mokpo

The ferry journey itself was fantastic. We departed Mokpo and sailed through probably hundreds of little islands. The views were amazing and we saw a beautiful sunset. We arrived in Jeju-si and met Yunseok, our IAESTE leader person, and Korean speaker. We bussed across the island to our first guesthouse and settled in for the night.

The next day we went to hire some scooters, but as none of us had an international driving licence (bizarrely, only one person in the group needed one), we couldn’t rent them. Instead, we hired a taxi for the day to take us around for the bargain price of W100,00o.

First stop was the Cheongiyeon waterfall.

Cheongiyeon Waterfall

We followed the stream to the ocean, to another waterfall. Apparently it’s one of the only waterfalls in Asia that falls into the sea… It was much more dramatic and impressive than the previous one.

Waterfall into the ocean.

Next stop, traditional Korean folk village. Not particularly exciting… Jeju is famous for its “stone grandfathers”, made of the volcanic stone (Jeju is a volcanic island), and they are said to guard the island.

Stone Grandfathers

The next day we climbed a smallish mountain called sunrise peak near Seogwipo. Edu and I set off early so we could get up there and relax, but it didn’t take nearly as long as we were expecting. We waited for the sun to rise, and when it did it was completely foggy, so we didn’t actually get to see anything.

Sunrise Peak

After a quick breakfast we headed to catch the ferry to take us to Udo. This island is like a mini Jeju, less touristy, relatively unknown and much less spoiled by mass tourism. The ferry journey only took 15 minutes and at the port we tried our luck to see if we could hire scooters. To our surprise, they let us. The only person they didn’t allow was Yunseok, as he was Korean and didn’t have a driving licence. Again, a little odd, but this is Korea. I’ve come to expect such quirks. So, off we set, scootering around the island. It took a little bit of time to get used to riding the scooters. We took the costal road around the island and it was a little disconcerting to have the sea to one side of you. Needless to say, I went slowly…

Badabadabadabada!

We saw the 8 scenic wonders of Udo in just over 2 hours, including some of the women divers (haenyo) that Jeju is famous for. These women go diving for seaweed and food, and then prepare and serve it on the beaches or on the rocks in almost make-shift restaurants. Fascinating to watch, and quite interesting for Korea…

We spent the rest of the day checking out some lava tubes. As I mentioned before, Jeju is a volcanic island, formed following the eruption of Mt. Halla, which is right in the middle of the island. As such, most of the rock is of the volcanic type (with the methane bubble appearance), and has extremely fertile land (which means they can grow, and are famous for growing, things like tangerines). The lava tube itself was about 1km long and at the end of it was a huge lava tower thing.

Lava tube. The hand pose is (apparently) from a famous Korean drama.

On the last day we climbed up the highest mountain in South Korea, Mt. Halla. Luckily for us, it wasn’t too warm and it didn’t rain all day. When we did climb to the summit (it took about 4 hours) it was foggy again! So we didn’t see much, except for the few seconds where the wind swept away the mist to reveal the crater lake at the top. At the point everyone on top of the mountain rushed over to get a glimpse, and then it was gone again.

Crater Lake, Mt. Halla

Top of Mt. Halla

And that was it! We spent our last night in Jeju-si and spent Monday morning lying around because everyone was too aching to do anything much, before getting our flight back to Daejeon. The flight was awful, probably the worst flight I’ve been on, because of the turbulence. Korean Air are marvellous though, and surprisingly they have a jumbo jet to fly the 45 minutes from Jeju to Daejeon, a relatively small airport.

Overall, Jeju was a fun weekend. I was treating it as my vacation for the year, as I didn’t plan this placement very well as I’m head back to Uni straight away when I get back from here. It wasn’t what I expected though… The tourism information for Jeju makes it seem as though it’s a rural, quiet, paradise island where honeymooners can go and relax for a few weeks. The reality is that it’s a very built up, large, touristy island with loads of hotels, over-priced restaurants and tacky amusements (Love Land, the Teddy Bear Museum etc.). The beaches around Jeju are stunning though. It’s really difficult to get around Jeju if you don’t hire a car. The busses are okay, but they’re all in Korean, and despite the quite high numbers of foreign tourists, still aren’t in English. Luckily for us we had a Korean with us, but without him I’m not sure what we’d have done.

Having said that, we still had a great time. The highlight? Udo. Scootering around is such great fun, and really is the best way to see places like this. Udo is beautiful, and probably the closest to what Jeju was like. No cars, not many tourists and rugged, natural scenery.

More photos!

Why? Translating the menu says that it’s because they “expected to make a lot of rain in a noodle noodle party has changed”.

Priceless. I love you, Google Translate.

We arrived on Friday evening and checked into our motel, went for a few drinks, had a little wander around the dong and got an earlyish night.

On Saturday morning we began our sight seeing. First stop, the beach. But not any beach, oh no. This beach has some rocks about 200m away from the coast which is a tomb, the tomb of King Munmu.

The Tomb of King Munmu

Then we headed back into the city to do a tour of the Gyeonju National Museum. There was so much stuff to see here. The tour guide who showed us around only took us to a small selection. We did get to sample some tea though, and saw some fascinating Buddhist art, as well as some ancient Korean bling. However, the highlight of the museum was the Emille Bell. This is essentially a giant bell, from a temple, which when struck lightly can be heard 3km away. I’m not sure how true this is though, as we weren’t allowed try.

Emille Bell

After the museum, we went across the road to the site of a royal palace and a beautiful lotus pond, Anapji. The pond was reconstructed in 1974-5, and many relics were found, most of which are now in the museum. At this time of year though, the pond is stunning, with lotus flowers in bloom as far as the eye can see.

Anapji Pond

Next, the oldest observatory in Asia, Cheomseongdae Observatory. This simple structure is constructed from 12 stones around the base (one for every month), 30 stones high (one for every day in a month) and has a total of 366 stones altogether (almost one for every day of the year).

Cheomseongdae Observatory

Close to this were more tombs, the Noseo-dong tombs,  this time formed as mounds in the earth made of stone, and covered in soil and grass.There were loads of these peppered around the city – it’s quite an odd site to see.

Noseo-dong Tombs

We finished the day at a resort park, where we hired mini quad bikes and motorcycles, and rode around like kids. Fun!

On Sunday, we went to see two of Korea’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the temple at Bulguk-sa and the Seokguram Grotto. Both of these places were stunning, honestly some of the most tranquil places I’ve been to.

The grounds from the Bulguk-sa temple

The Buddha in one of the buildings at Bulguk-sa temple

Dragon detail at Bulguk-sa

Climbing the arduous steps. You're supposed to make a wish while doing so.

Piles of stones, something to do with praying...

Lanterns at Seokguram Grotto

View from the Seokguram Grotto. In the distance you can see the Sea of Japan

And that’s it! All in all, a great weekend.

More photos!

Anyway, some pictures!

Last night, after spending a few hours drinking soju bombs (건배!) we went to a nore-bang. In Korea, bang just means room. There’s loads of different bangs – PC bangs (for gamers), DVD bangs (with a screen, sofa and DVD player) and nore-bangs (literally “sing room”, a room with a karaoke machine and flashing lights). We snuck in some of our own drinks and settled down to a night of singing.

I’m not normally a huge fan of karaoke, my limited experience of it being in gay bars and the only people taking part are serious X Factor wannabes. Nore-bangs are fun though, because it’s a single room with friends, so you don’t have to worry too much about making an idiot of yourself. The soju helps too, of course…

Frankly, it’s a little bit bizarre. We arrived (after caught in one of the heaviest rainstorms I’ve probably ever been in), and were confronted by the ticket desk. From what we could make out, you could buy a ticket to see 3 of the attractions for 7000 won. Hmm… why would anyone want to do that, when the cost of an individual attraction is only 2000 won? Anyway, we decided not to pay and went exploring instead. First stop, the Tower of Great Light. Based on a traditional Korean observatory, apparently.

The signage at the bottom of the tower said that first you would be taken to the middle floor (that round bit in the middle), and then you could climb the stairs to the top. We took the elevator to the middle bit, had a look around and then tried to find the stairs up but alas there were none. Apparently you can’t go to the top any more.

Next stop was the Reunification Pavilion, the part of the Expo where they make a big deal about how much they’d love to become one Korea again. They even built a road! Yeh…

Then, the Science part of the Expo. This building housed an exhibition for pretty much every Institute in Daejeon (and there’s quite a lot of them). Sofie and I got really excited when we saw the one for KRIBB…

KRIBB, which is apparently elite, safe, global, proud and connected. Unfortunately the KRIBB space was a little dull, it’s no wonder kids these days aren’t interested in science.

What next? Oh! A whole space devoted to wedding costumes around the world, of course. The first few mannequins featured both a male and a female, until the designers realised that the males more or less always wear the same thing, no matter what the country. So they decided to save some space, and have women from different cultures marrying each other. Like this…

Bizarre.

For a bit of relaxation from all that learning, we headed to the theme park section, where there were actual people, unlike the rest of the park. I couldn’t work out if there was a theme for the park or not (see the photo of the alien next to the pirate ship below), and it just looked like a collection of second hand rides moved in from other places. Still quite enjoyable though.

Final port of call, the energy (saving) pavilion. Despite the key message of this exhibition being how to reduce your energy consumption, it had far more flashy things, televisions etc than any of the other exhibitions. However, in typical Korean style, it was still quite amusing. Particularly the idea of putting a scanner into a fridge. Very energy efficient.

And that was about it really. Expo Park, one of the great 8 tourist wonders of Daejeon.

More photos!

Filed under: Korea, Ramblings ]]> http://pogoism.com/2010/07/30/expo-park/feed/ 0 Joel Tower of Great Light KRIBB Expo Wedding http://pogoism.com/2010/07/26/noms-korean-stylee/ http://pogoism.com/2010/07/26/noms-korean-stylee/#comments Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:22:14 +0000 pogoism http://pogoism.com/?p=1276 ]]> Settle down class. Today’s lesson is going to be about Korean food.

It seems like there are two different types of Korean food – one you get in the canteen, and one you get out in restaurants. Most of my Korean culinary experience comes from the former, so I’m not sure how accurate a portrayal of Korean cuisine this will be. But I’m going to blog about it anyway.

Food from the canteen can be categorized into one of a few different things:

1. Salty water with things floating in it.
2. Mashed up fish/meat/vegetables/fruit/tofu formed into perfect geometric shapes.
3. Jelly. It’s best not to probe further into what this “jelly” contains, so I haven’t.
4. Kimchi.
5. Rice. With every meal, and in copious amounts.

Though that doesn’t sound too appealing, some of it is actually quite nice. The typical Korean canteen meal is a buffet style affair, where you choose one menu (not sure why we have to do this, as I always mix-and-match anyway), then proceed to the food trolleys and fill your tray up with whatever you like. I’m getting pretty good at figuring out what has meat in it, but it’s still a little tricky sometimes. General rule: if you don’t know what it is, it’s probably best to steer clear.

Kimchi is probably my favourite bit of canteen food. It’s a traditional Korean dish, and you get it with almost every meal. It can be made out of a variety of vegetables, though from what I’ve eaten, the most popular seems to be baechu (Chinese cabbage). The cabbage is then spiced, seasoned and fermented. Yep, I know that sounds quite vile, but it’s actually very tasty. And don’t even get me started on kimchi pancakes… mmm… *drools*

Another yummy thing is the packets of salted seaweed strips you sometimes get at the canteen. You’re supposed to fill these with rice and eat. Again, sounds vile, but actually rather nice.

Anyway, that’s the canteen. I can eat most of the things in the canteen, so I don’t really need to worry to much. However, going out to eat is quite another story.

Vegetarians don’t exist in Korea. Well, maybe one or two. But they’re far from common. When you tell people you don’t eat meat the usual response is a blank, vacant stare that appears to say “does not compute”. Koreans love their meat.

One of the most popular type of places to go eat in Korea are restaurants that have barbeques built into the table. Then, you order as much meat (usually pork) as you like, and cook it yourself. This is, I imagine, heaven for most meat eaters. Not so great for veggies, but you can always have bibimbap – loads of different vegetables, rice all in a broth (hot or cold), topped off with an egg and hot sauce. Yummeh.

Generally though, the food here is really quite good. It’s very high in vegetables, which is why you don’t really see that many fat Koreans. Having said that, a walk around any downtown here and you’ll see the incredible Americanisation of Korea – Dunkin’ Donuts, Subway, Baskin Robbins are becoming more and more popular here.

The photo below is a good example of what I described about canteen food… Here we have vegetable dumpling, some Korean salad thing, Kimchi, some more Korean beansprout salad thing, and the hapseyo seaweed strips, and rice, of course. All washed down with some banana milk.

Someone on Facebook recently asked the question: “In which ways have you been Koreanised?”. After a bit of thought (and some inspiration from the replies he got), I came up with these Koreanisations – things that are now natural to me but which I know might seem strange if I were to continue with them when in my own country… The bowing. I bow a lot – I do it to say hello, goodbye, thank you, and sorry. Sometimes I catch myself bowing to the chi … Read More

via Coffee Helps

Then, after lunch we’re expected to be in work until 6pm. Most people stay in the lab longer than that, even if they’re not doing anything. It’ s just part of the mentality that you *have* to be seen at work, and presumably no-one cares what you’re doing, just as long as you can be seen. Apparently Korea has one of the longest average workweeks and overtime hours in the world.

At any given point during the day, I can be sure that of the 6 people in our lab, at least one of them will be head-down on their desk fast asleep. But hey, at least they’re in work!

Lunch time is also a weird affair. We go to the canteen on the Institute’s campus where we can choose from one of two different menus, and then go help ourselves buffet style. Both menus are the same price, so I’m not too sure why you’re restricted to only choosing food from one. Once you’ve got you’re food, you then have to eat really fast. I’m sure that’s fine for my Korean colleagues, but eating noodle soup with chopsticks isn’t an easy task when you’ve only lived in Asia for a week. Then, when the last person has put the last morsel of food into their mouths, everyone stands up, takes their trays to the hatch and leaves. Koreans don’t even drink anything with their meals, perhaps as it’s wasting valuable desk snoozing time…

After a long journey from London, I finally made it to Daejeon yesterday evening. I was greeted by my boss and the PhD student from the group and we went out for some food. Luckily we went to a place that had some English on the menu, and I had some rice and prawn thing with an egg on top. After that, I went to my dorm. Seems like I’m sharing with someone, though I haven’t seen him yet…

After a loooong sleep, I woke up this afternoon and went for a wander into town to try and find some bed sheets. Found a place called Home Plus (which has almost God-like status amongst the ex-pats here. It’s more or less Wal-Mart, though when I went in, it seems like it’s owned by Tesco. Same style labels, and their own-brand products are sometimes actually Tesco stuff). Didn’t have any luck finding bed sheets, but at least I knew where it was.

Photos!

Had got in touch with some of the other placement students, and agreed to meet them at KRIBB (my workplace). Easy enough, I thought. Except when I left the campus where I’m staying, I turned the wrong way. Took me an hour to find KRIBB, by which point, the students had given up and gone back. Frantically Facebooked them on my phone (dread to think how much it cost), and luckily they were still about. Oh, how great it was to finally talk to people who could speak English. We got some food, which is *really* cheap out here. And yummy. There are some dubious things in the food, and I’m going to try as much as possible to eat non-meat things. I think it might be somewhat tricky though. Sofie taught me the word for “meat” in Korean, so hopefully I’ll be ok.

We went back to Home Plus after meeting up with some other ex-pats in an ex-pat bar. Somewhere I think I’ll be spending a lot of time downing soju and whatever else is drunk here.

Anyway, some first impressions.

It’s like America. Only everything is in Korean. It really is. There’s so much choice. A lot of people drive big cars. They have most American chains you could think of (Dunkin’ Donuts…). They have coffee shops that claim to have the best coffee in the world. Food is cheap.  It’s very green. It’s not as hot as I’d been led to believe, though of course that might change.

Starting work tomorrow, so going to get an earlyish night now…

And the UK‘s dreadful entry came last. *sigh*

But! By FAR the best bit of the show (for me anyway) was that awesome flash mob across Europe! Seriously, fantastic. Even though it was pre-recorded.

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

– Winston Churchill

Flickr / Katchooo

I love radio. It’s so understated. It’s been around since 1922 and according to the latest Rajar figures, it’s popularity is at one of the highest points it’s ever been at. Yet people never really talk about it. You nearly always hear people going on about who has been kicked off Over the Rainbow, or what happened last night on Eastenders, but never anything about the radio.

There’s something much more personal about the radio, something I don’t seem to get from watching television. I wake up in the mornings to the Today Show and it’s almost like they’re talking to me. Just me. It’s much less about appearances, obviously, and so conversations and interviews sound so much more frank, more direct, more honest. I’m sure that’s not the case, yet it seems so comforting.

Paradoxically, my radio listening has increased much more because of the internet, and more specifically, podcasts. Podcasts allow me to listen to radio shows that previously geography would have prevented me from doing. Cases in point, some of the wonderful content produced by National Public Radio in the US, such as RadioLab, and Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me.

Finally, the power of radio to elicit emotion and response from me is much greater than that of television or film. When I can’t sleep at night, I’ll often put in my earphone and listen to an hour of some of the finest radio broadcasting I’ve ever come across: This American Life. A typical episode of This American Life consists of a mixture of essay, field recordings, memoirs or short fiction based around a single theme. The quality of this show is second to none, from the moment I put my earphones in and hit play I’m enthralled for an hour and yearn for a new episodes to appear in my iTunes every Monday.

Long live the radio.